"How can it be that hardly anyone at all likes a creature so bright and fuzzy?"
It was common knowledge that bees were good for plants, but most of the Fairy Kingdom considered them a necessary evil rather than desirable visitors. Princess Dawn was nearly alone in actively calling them cute.
"So you think a dress will help?" her boyfriend Sunny asked.
"Not just one dress." Dawn twirled, her black pansy skirt floating around her legs. "I made a few pieces for me and some for Marianne." She fluffed the yellow trim on the hem, made from the fuzziest iris beards that could be found. "I'm trying to start a fashion so people realize bees are cute as well as necessary."
"Well, you look great. As usual."
"You're sweet."
They shared a quick kiss, and then Dawn started fussing with a garment still in progress. It looked like a vest. Sunny wasn't sure if it was one, or destined to be a shirt or jacket or dress.
"It's the perfect time, too," Sunny noted. "After the Bog King announced the Forest's new exports, everyone's thinking about bees. Was that part of your inspiration?"
"Yeah. I kind of wish Boggy told us privately first – or at least told Marianne and she told me – so I could've had these ready in advance and maybe we could've even worn yellow and black when he announced it, but on the other hand, since Boggy doesn't even wear clothes, how could he anticipate a fashion trend? If he even knows there's such a thing as fashion in dress, that's probably as much as he does."
Dawn shook her head.
"That was unkind of me. He could know plenty about fashion and just not care. I'm just venting spillover frustration over have few flowers have actual black petals."
"Have you thought about dying the petals?"
"I suppose I could. It's hard to get a true black, though."
"Or …" Sunny rocked from his heels to his toes and back. "There's also cloth. That can be dyed pretty dark. And you can commission different textures, so you could get a bee-like fuzziness."
"Sunny, you're a genius!"
Dawn dropped the vest and tackled him in a flying hug. Sunny laughed before losing his breath, to a combination of sudden change in position and Dawn's grip. He squeezed her in return. Her wings opened before the couple could hit the floor, letting them land softly.
"I'm also thinking about making something for you. Think you'd wear something with bee stripes?"
"I'd be proud to wear anything you made for me." Sunny kissed Dawn's nose. "I might need a different hat to go with it, though."
"I already thought of that!" Dawn scrambled up and fluttered to her sketchbook, flipping through to the right page.
It was a new hat. It wrapped around Sunny's head like the one he currently wore, helping hold up and restrain his hair, but this looked like it was made of petals instead of leather and ladybug shells.
"It looks great, Dawn."
"Not afraid, are you, Tough Girl?" Bog teased.
They stood at the base of a tree, a description with accounted for perhaps ninety percent of the Dark Forest for those without wings. Despite having wings themselves, they were staying low, watching barrels being loaded into a cart while bees droned overhead. Marianne kept glancing nervously up.
"It's just hard to believe it's rare to be stung during this."
"There're a few tricks to it. I don't pretend to be an expert, but smoke makes bees tired, and the beekeepers stay under the hive for a week before going in so they smell like they belong there. We've carved our own entrances to the hives to get in without agitating the whole colony."
"How many hives are in the Dark Forest, again?" Marianne tapped on her sword pommel.
"About a dozen right now –they migrate in and out sometimes. But any hive we harvest from in one year is left alone the next year, to avoid stressing the bees, so we're only collecting from six."
Goblins gathered wax from bees for a variety of purposes. It was useful for candle-making, waterproofing, as an ingredient in medicinal creams, and even cosmetics. Honey came with the wax. Though it was edible – so, technically speaking, was the wax itself – most goblins didn't care for the sweetness and only used it as a glaze for certain meats.
The Bog King had decided to get more use out of the honey by exporting it to the Fairy Kingdom. Princess Marianne, always eager to try things, had accepted a small barrel to take back with her as a sample for the court before the main delivery arrived. It would be waiting for her at Bog's castle by the end of her visit.
The cart trundled away. Bog idly wove his fingers into Marianne's.
"Shall we?"
They didn't walk together often. That was a shame, Marianne thought; they should make time for it in the future. A leisurely stroll gave a chance to soak in the crisp late autumn woods more deeply than flying through allowed.
Part of that was probably because there was less of an impulse to turn it into a race.
Marianne admired the reds and golds and oranges around her, and the growing browns and greys that reminded her of Bog's scales, and the few stubborn holdouts of green.
A leaf fell towards them, slowly, dancing in the air. It was pale yellow mottled with light brown, like the glimpses she'd gotten of wax and honey before the barrels were shut.
"Soon this will all be under snow," said Bog. "I hope you have a change to see it frosted over before everything is soft and white. Snow's a bit like flying through clouds, but frost … Frost is like seeing the Forest covered in the webs of a thousand spiders, and it sparkles like they've all been catching stars."
Marianne giggled.
"I'm sorry, Bog, but you are just such a sap sometimes."
"Oh, that reminds me. If honey is well received, then we ought to talk about syrup as well."
This story was written for tumblr's Strange Magic Secret Santa trade, for Raven-Ink, who like Potionless and Butterfly Bog and requested 'anything fluffy'. What's fluffier than a bee, or sweeter than honey?
The story is set outside of winter because, while winter's happening, most people want a break from winter. In autumn, meanwhile, winter still feels like something to look forward to.
Dawn paraphrases a line from Anne of Green Gables (as in the first book where that's the actual title, not the entire franchise). It's from the Christmas chapter – see if you can spot it!